Twist of Fate
by Buckingham
Summary: DM. All she knows is that they’re halfway between something and nothing, and it feels anything but simple.
1. Default Chapter

Title: Twist of Fate  
Author: Buckingham  
Rating: M-ish Spoilers: up through the season finale  
Summary: All she knows is that they're halfway between something and nothing, and it feels anything but simple.  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. 

A/N: This was intended to be a quick little collection of interconnected vignettes, but as I started writing, it kind of took on a life of its own. Since it's pretty long now, I'm chopping it up into a few smaller pieces, though I still think of it as one big story.

x –

If there's one thing that Meredith knows these days, it's that her life can't possibly get any more strange or out of control.

She passed the point of no return a long time ago, and it's left her feeling like she's living someone else's life. She feels out of place and uncomfortable everywhere – at home, at work, with her mother, even with her friends.

Derek, on the other hand, is utterly at home in her crazy, crowded house, as part of her ridiculous, upside down world.

Therein lies the real problem.

"This is my second favorite part of the day," he says from bed, rearranging the blankets to his liking. He smiles, sleepy and satisfied. "My favorite is what happened about five minutes ago."

Meredith stands in the doorway, watching. She's wearing his favorite blue shirt, and has his teeth marks on her inner thigh. He knows the precise temperature that she likes her showers – not hot enough to scald but enough so it's a bit uncomfortable – and that she prefers spicy mustard on her sandwiches to plain old yellow. He also knows that bad 80s horror movies are one of her guilty pleasures, and that she requires at least three cans of Diet Coke daily in order to function in an even remotely effective manner. Earlier he made her a Western omelet for dinner, and changed the batteries in the smoke detector outside her bedroom. The other day, he picked up her dry cleaning because the cleaners' was on his way home, and last week, when some phone company called during dinner and asked about changing long distance carriers, it was Derek who answered and said they weren't interested.

In the past couple of months, Meredith has become intimately acquainted with the cluster on freckles on his left hip, the one that's shaped like a Hershey's Kiss, and she knows that he makes the most adorable purring sounds if his scalp is massaged just right. She knows about his trailer and green, green landscape, she can count his nieces and nephews, and she is well aware of his feelings for coffee ice cream, single malt scotch, fly fishing, and The Sun Also Rises. His favorite color is indigo – she thinks that might also be the color of his eyes. Yesterday at the market, she bought another box of those twigs that he thinks pass as cereal for her cupboard and a six pack of the imported beer that he likes for her refrigerator. Last week, she drove him around for two days when his car was in the shop getting a tune-up.

Some might even say that they're essentially sharing a life.

But he still doesn't know about her mother, and she still doesn't know his parents' names. She still doesn't know why he decided to up and move clear across the country (to live in a trailer!) when he was doing damn well at a prestigious New York hospital, and he doesn't know that she almost got engaged her second year of medical school, before she realized that, just like her mother had with her father, she loved the idea of being doctor even more than she loved Ryan, and it didn't seem fair to put him through that.

Some might say that they hardly know one another if they can't even talk about the major details of their lives.

It all depends on how you look at it.

Meredith doesn't know what to make of any of this. She doesn't know what to call it, or how she feels about it. It's a puzzle that she can't quite figure out.

Derek rolls onto his side and flips off the lamp on his side of the bed. His back looks golden in the low light, flawless and tempting. He's in her bed, and her sheets and pillows smell like him all the time these days, convincing her to permanently erase the concepts of professional boundaries or ethics from her mind, and still she's so damned confused.

"What are we doing?" Meredith finally asks, surprised by the sound of her own voice.

He looks at her over his shoulder. His hair is a mess, he hasn't shaved in a couple of days, and his eyes are squinty with exhaustion. She feels gravity, or something like it, pulling her to the bed anyway.

"Sleeping. I hope."

Of course, Meredith thinks. It's that simple.

She crawls in beside him, and sets the alarm, knowing without asking what time he needs to be up. He rolls toward her, and his hands are instantly on her hips, pulling her closer.

"You look better in this shirt than I do," he mumbles, and presses a wet kiss against her neck.

He falls asleep a few minutes later, and Meredith knows that he is utterly comfortable with whatever little arrangement they've got going on. She wishes that she felt the same.

All she knows is that they're halfway between something and nothing, and it feels anything but simple.

Still, she falls asleep with her thigh hiked over his, his hand warm against her back. There is nothing uncomfortable about that.

x –

At the hospital, Meredith tries to convince herself that nothing is actually preferable.

Sometimes, when she scrubs in for a surgery or waits on test results from the lab, she finds herself thinking of the way his face looks in the darkness, half-sleep but still hot for something. Other times, it's the way that he looks in the shower when his head is full of suds and he insists on singing Elvis Costello that stops her dead. But if she ever stops to consider the look in his eyes when he watches her undress, like he's thrilled for the opportunity but just wishes he could tear the clothes off himself, she's completely finished, blown to pieces in her pretty white lab coat.

How the hell is she supposed to stand across from him in the OR when thoughts like that could run through her head at any minute? It's insane and unprofessional and distracting to say the least.

The other night, while they barbecued on the tiny deck outside his trailer, he told her that she drove him half out of his mind – "In the best kind of way," he assured her – but she knows the truth is that he has her wrapped around his finger, that she is weak, weak, weak when it comes to anything having to do with him, his body, or his smart-ass grin.

But that's only physical. Not emotional, not mental. It's infatuation, she tells herself. A fling, a diversion, a damn good way to blow off steam at the end of the day. It's nothing more than that.

Certainly not a relationship, whatever Derek might think. And certainly not anything warm and fuzzy, however much Izzie and Christina might want to tease her. He makes her laugh, he makes an excellent omelet and grills a mean steak, and he's downright inspired in bed – why shouldn't she spend every free minute with him?

Sometimes sex and conversation is just sex and conversation.

She ignores the empty, lonely feeling that she gets when she thinks like that. Because in the end, she knows that nothing is what she should hope for. No one ever gets hurt by nothing.

x -

Maybe if she didn't contradict herself all the time, life would be easier. Maybe then she'd be able to get things under control.

Half the time, though, she has no idea what it is that she really wants or what it is that she thinks she should want instead. She is perpetually confused, and hates that feeling more than anything.

She may know that Derek lives in a trailer, but they still spend more nights than not at her place. He likes being there, for some reason that she doesn't quite understand, so she doesn't argue about it. On Wednesday, George and Izzie are stuck at the hospital, so they have the house to themselves. They order Chinese, and Derek forces her to watch some slick-looking movie in which an inordinate amount of things are blown to pieces and all the women seem to have trouble keeping their shirts on.

Later, he manages to coax Meredith out of hers, despite the fact that she hasn't really slept in over twenty-eight hours, and they fool around on her mother's sofa just like they did their first night together.

"I'm so glad I decided to move to Seattle," Derek teases, all breathless and sweaty above her. "You should get a job with the Chamber of Commerce."

"You've lived here longer than I have."

"But you grew up here," he says. "One of Seattle's natural resources…"

She laughs despite herself.

They are still undressed when they hear the car in the driveway, and they scramble for clothing in a way that reminds Meredith of high school, how she always seemed to get caught with her pants down. Of course, like all guys, Derek seems to have an easier time of pulling himself together, and he laughs, comfortably in his pants and t-shirt once again, as she struggles to fish her bra out of the potted plant in the corner before George and Izzie come through the door.

She wants to smack the smug look off his face, but he's just too pretty for that.

"Anyone in the mood for cinnamon rolls?" Izzie asks before she even has her jacket off. It's her idea of a greeting.

"All I want is a hot shower and four solid hours of sleep," George says wearily. "Just four."

He collapses into a chair, looking half-dead.

Meredith glances at Derek, who is smirking in an even more smart-ass way than usual. She follows his eyes, and sees her panties draped across the top of the television like a scarlet letter.

It's all too mortifying, but she finds herself laughing nervously. Derek laughs too, and neither of them can seem to stop.

George perks up in his chair.

"What's so funny?" he asks. He self-consciously rubs a hand over his face, then glances down at his fly, assuming they must be laughing at him.

Izzie eyes them suspiciously, but doesn't seem to catch on.

"It's nothing," Meredith finally says. "We're just delirious. You know, from exhaustion."

George nods, and Izzie nods, and Derek nods, even while laughing.

After George heads for the shower and Izzie disappears to play Betty Crocker, Meredith quickly swipes her underwear from the TV, glaring.

"You're such a jerk. That wasn't funny. Not even a little bit," she whispers as they trudge upstairs.

She's smiling as she speaks, and doesn't do a thing about the fact that he's hooked his finger in one of her belt loops as he follows after her.

"I think they're probably aware that you sometimes take your underwear off in my presence."

"Maybe so," she agrees. "But we don't have to advertise the fact."

"Speak for yourself. I'm looking to get the word out there." He pins her against her bedroom door. "Would sky-writing be too over the top?"

She shakes her head, and ducks under his arm. Inside her bedroom, she watches him start to undress again.

"You know, all you ever want to do is joke around and have sex."

He shakes his head, seeming slightly confused. She can't blame him entirely. One day, she wants there to be nothing between them but the physical and the frivolous, and the next she's somehow dissatisfied with exactly that. She can barely keep up with her changing moods herself, so she hardly expects it from Derek.

But he grins finally, not seeming to mind all that much.

"Well, doesn't that beat the alternative?" he asks, pulling her onto the bed beside him. "Being deadly serious and not having sex?"

Meredith rolls her eyes.

"Fine," he huffs. "I can do serious."

He pretends to think for a moment, and when he lowers his voice and stares deeply into her eyes, she has to force herself not to shiver.

"I am deeply disturbed by the steroid scandal in baseball. What kind of message does it send to the nation's youth?"

Derek smiles, seriously calling his sincerity into question.

"Can we have sex now?" he asks.

She laughs, too amused to do anything else.

The answer is yes, of course. Always yes. This is who they are. Maybe it's a mistake to ever ask for more.

x –

Ever since she was a kid, Meredith has had this thing about the dark.

She isn't afraid exactly – she's far too logical for that kind of thing – but she always feels a little uneasy when lying around, hopelessly awake, in a room painted black. When she was a small, she saw monsters in every strange shadow on the wall, in the lumpy shapes made by piles of discarded clothing and abandoned toys. It wasn't that she necessarily believed the monsters were real, but just the thought that they could be, that anything could be hiding out in all that darkness and she'd have no way of knowing, that really haunted her.

The uneasy feeling is always worse when she's sleeping in an unfamiliar place – a hotel room, a friend's couch, on a gurney in a deserted hallway of the hospital.

Derek's trailer.

At the far end, there is silvery moonlight painting stripes across the walls, but the wind is howling outside, and they may as well be in the middle of nowhere on all this empty land. Of course Meredith cannot fall back asleep.

She thinks she may have had a bad dream, something about her mother, but she can't be sure. Sometimes memories can seem like dreams.

Derek pats her arm clumsily, barely awake.

"What's wrong?"

His voice has the bearish sound of someone who really doesn't want an answer, who probably won't be conscious enough to understand one anyway.

She is mortified. If only they'd slept at her house, she thinks. It doesn't matter that she was the one who pushed for this in the first place.

"It's nothing. I'm fine," she tells him finally. "Go back to sleep."

He yawns right beside her ear.

"Nothing doesn't keep you up half the night, Meredith."

When she rolls over, she is surprised that she can make out his eyes in the dark, wide and alive with that spark that is just him. She frowns, knowing there's no way out.

"It's just that, you know, I'm not a big fan of the dark. Especially the dark in strange, unfamiliar places."

Derek laughs, and she fully expects him to say something like, You've held a freaking human heart in your hands and you can't handle a little darkness?

She braces herself.

"You're afraid of the dark?" he asks, not unkindly. "That surprises me. Why didn't I know about this until now?"

"I'm not afraid," she says testily. "I just don't really like it, that's all."

"And here I thought the fact that you always want to have sex with the lights on was a testament to how sexy I am."

She hears the humor in his voice, and sees the white flash of his teeth in the darkness. There is something about him, something intangible and breathtaking, that always has her smiling when she's around him. Even at times like this, when she's uneasy and embarrassed and more than a little defensive. He can make her forget herself like no one she's ever known.

"I'm sure in your own head, that's true," she tells him. "And it kills me to ruin that for you."

He nods, pulling her closer. His hands are so warm against her back.

"Does this go back to when you were a kid? Did you have nightmares?"

She sighs. Her childhood has never been one of her favorite subjects. But Derek is playing with her hair, making it easy to speak without thinking, and she's pushed along.

"Sort of. I had bad dreams like every kid, but they weren't awful." She seeks out his eyes, wanting that connection. "I used to have this night light. It was blue, shaped like a big star, and I loved it. It just made me feel like I wasn't ever really alone, even in the dark."

He smiles.

"But when I got to be about six or so," Meredith says. "My mother sat me down and told me that she thought I might be getting too old for a night light. She said I should think about giving it up."

Derek lets out a sharp breath.

"That's kind of harsh."

"Yeah, well, it was my mother. Even back then, I knew what people thought of her. How strong and capable she was. And I wanted to be just like her."

He hugs her to him, and she suddenly feels warm and sleepy, like she's in her own bed. She realizes then that she can't remember the last night that she slept without him, not when it was possible anyway. How has that happened?

"You know…" he starts to say. "When I was a kid and couldn't sleep, my mother used to sing to me…"

Meredith smiles, resting her head on his shoulder. His voice is terribly off-key but she's mostly asleep before he even gets to the second chorus of "I Wanna Be Sedated."

The next evening, she opens her hospital locker and finds the shiny plastic packaging of s night light on the top shelf. It isn't a star, but a bright blue crescent moon. She doesn't even try to hide her smile.

x –

More to come…


	2. 2

Disclaimer – I still don't own anything. 

x –

Derek cuts into line behind her in the cafeteria, tossing a sandwich onto her tray.

"Do you like baseball?" he asks entirely of the blue.

He snags a grape from her fruit cup, and she eyes him suspiciously. For all she knows this is some kind of test, a joke, his idea of a come-on. She can already hear all the baseball-sex analogies.

"Why?"

"I got tickets for tomorrow's Mariners game," he says. "I wanted to take you."

Meredith smiles, feeling strangely pleased.

"I love baseball."

He nods.

"Good. It's a date."

His pager goes off then, and he darts off to some emergency or another, but not before he grabs his sandwich and leaves her to pay the bill.

He makes up for it the next night, though, when he plies her with hotdogs and peanuts and cold foamy beer at the game. He even tries to feed her wisps of sticky-sweet cotton candy, but she's reached her limit by then.

She can't remember the last time that she was at a baseball game, and the whole night seems strangely sweet, with clear black skies above and a pleasant chill in the air. She finds herself rooting for the home team, though she only knows a few of their names, and meticulously keeping score in her program.

Derek watches her closely, and smiles.

"You know, I thought you were just being a good sport when you said that you loved baseball," he says. "I didn't expect you to be this fanatical."

She shrugs.

"My father lived and died with the Red Sox when I was a kid. I guess I picked up the habit."

He sips at his beer, nodding.

"Yeah, I've mostly been dying with the Mets for the last thirty years, so I have a kind of masochistic love for baseball myself."

On the field, the Mariners' second baseman throws a routine ground ball away, and the go-ahead runs scores. Boos rain down from all over the stadium, and Derek laughs quietly.

"This reminds me. I used to play," he says. He gestures toward the field. "I was a third baseman in high school."

"Really?" she says. It is vaguely pathetic, but she is charmed by thought of him in tight baseball pants and cleats. "I didn't know that."

He nods slowly.

"My junior year, we were one out away from going to the State Championship game. It's the bottom of the seventh inning, and we're up by one run. They've got guys on second and third, and of course the guy hits the ball right at me." He smiles ruefully. "All I've got to do is catch it, and we're in. But the ball bounces off my glove, scoots into left field, and two runs score. End of game. It took a long time for me to lose the 'cracks under pressure' reputation."

She smiles.

"I would think that becoming a well-respected surgeon is a pretty effective way to shrug off that label."

"Yeah, but imagine if I had to do it down there." Derek points out toward the field. "With 55,000 screaming people watching…"

"You'd be amazing and you know it," Meredith says.

He grins at her, silently finishing his beer. Sometimes she wonders what it is exactly that draws him to her so strongly. She has the average self-esteem issues that many women do, but they're not crippling. Still she's never quite understood being the focus of his single-minded, dogged pursuit – there were and still are times when she wants to turn to him and ask, You seriously think I'm worth all this trouble? Even now, when she's more than given in to him, he always seems a little bit thrilled to be with her, as if he's lucked out somehow.

There must be something that he sees in her, something that she makes him feel, something that he hasn't gotten from anyone else in a long while.

She just wishes that she knew what it was, so she could do it on cue -- the way he looks at her in those times would make it more than worth it. With his arm around her now, smelling of beer and soap, Derek suddenly seems worth so many things. It's like a revelation in the crowded baseball stadium.

Meredith digs deep, hoping she gets it right.

"I once dated a guy who played minor league baseball," she tells him. "When I was in college."

He gives her the look that she's after, somewhere between jealous and intrigued.

"In the three months we were dating, his batting average went from .263 to .309."

Derek smirks in his pretty way, and shakes his head.

"I bet it did."

Meredith stretches over to kiss his smart mouth. He tastes like mustard and beer.

"You know," he starts to say, his mouth still lightly touching hers. "It's probably a good thing that you and Mr. Baseball didn't last. Not only would you not have met me, but you'd have to worry about groupies all the time. You know, girls dropping room keys in his lap, waiting after for him in the parking lot…"

She laughs.

"I've got news for you. Good-looking, successful surgeons are pretty high on most women's wish lists too."

He smiles ridiculously.

"Really? Were you wishing for me?"

"Before we met, I didn't know that men like you really existed."

"I'm not even going to think about that one," he says, sipping at his beer. "I'm just going to assume that it's a compliment."

She nods.

"It is. Mostly."

Derek smiles again, and then turns back at the field. The Mariners are in the midst of a rally, trying to piece something together out of nothing. Above, the sky is still wide open, blue-black with only a few visible stars. It makes Meredith feel like she's part of something larger, and she lays her head on Derek's shoulder, absolutely grateful.

x –

Of course there is a problem.

It seems that other people -- other nosey, meddling people -- may have noticed that Dr. Shepherd sometimes looks at Meredith in a way that could maybe, if you have an overactive imagination and lots of time on your hands, suggest something more than a fling, certainly something more than professional interest. Izzie and Christina are both smirking at her more often than usual these days, almost always after Dr. Shepherd has been around, and it's enough to make her feel like she's become the comedy relief among her friends.

She knows the looks in question well, and can admit that there is something to them. It just isn't what Izzie and Christina think it is. She can't possibly allow herself to believe that.

Late on a Friday night, they sit in an empty hallway, trying to catch ten minutes of quiet time. Meredith is reading the latest JAMA and sipping a Diet Coke. For once, she is not thinking of Derek, but instead of her mother, who she hasn't been able to see in a few days.

Izzie interrupts with her trademark lack of subtlety.

"You know, Meredith, I may have accused you of falling for him but I've got to tell you…" she says, delighted. She's eating an apple, looking like the epitome of innocence. "Shepherd's got it bad for you. So very bad."

Christina laughs haughtily.

"Poor McDreamy," she declares. "Falling in love with one of his interns. It's kind of sad. I mean, sex is sex, but love is just such a cliché."

Meredith glares at both of them. The mere mention of that four letter word, in any context involving her and Derek, makes her want to jump out the nearest window.

"First of all, nobody is in love with anybody, okay?" She slams her magazine down on the gurney. "And secondly, what would make you think such a ridiculous thing? It's crazy. It's insane. It's the product of two hyperactive imaginations, that's what it is. God."

Christina and Izzie exchange a look, and then dissolve into fits of laughter. George appears at the end of the hallway, smiling warily as he takes in the display.

"What's so funny?" he asks.

Meredith sighs, refusing to answer. Izzie grins evilly.

"We were just discussing how ridiculously obvious it is that Dr. Shepherd… Derek … has fallen for our lovely little Meredith here."

George frowns, looking contemplative.

"You mean because of the way he's always looking at her?"

Izzie and Christina laugh once more. They are having way too much fun with this.

"George!" Meredith yells. "I thought you'd be on my side."

He shrugs, sitting down beside her.

"The truth's the truth," he says simply.

"And this is true," Christina says. "It's actually kind of sweet, in a pathetic, pitiful way. His face lights up like a damned Christmas tree whenever he sees you, Meredith. Like the other day…"

Meredith tries to imagine what she's possibly alluding to, but how many moments have they looked at each other for just a second too long, a second in which an observer could see anything that s/he chose to see? She imagines what Derek would say if he were here, listening to all this, and she's pretty damn sure he'd be laughing along with them. Unlike Meredith, it's pretty difficult to rattle him.

"The other day," Christina continues. "He was sitting outside that gliosarcoma patient's room, going over test results which all pointed to the fact that there were no real surgical options for the guy. So naturally poor McDreamy's all upset that there's nothing he can do, and then you come around the corner, looking a little worse for wear to be honest, and he freaking beaming, like all was right with the world because there you were. I half-expected violins and doves or something."

Izzie nods emphatically, biting into her apple.

"Or yesterday, when they were having dinner," she says to Christina. "He looked at her across the kitchen table like they were in kindergarten and he wanted her to be his Valentine. He's watching her with these big ol' puppy dog eyes, like he's thinking about carving her initials in a big heart on the skull of the next guy whose head he cut open."

George and Christina both chuckle, and Izzie grins, thoroughly pleased with herself.

"Wait a second," Meredith says, jumping off the gurney. "You're acting as if he wanders around like some kind of love sick idiot. That's not him. I mean, that's so not him I can't even tell you…"

Christina and Izzie nod skeptically, clearly humoring her.

"I'm serious," Meredith continues. "I had to threaten to withhold sex just to get him to tell me what his favorite novel is! We're barely in a relationship!"

No one says a word; they all just smile in a way that makes it clear they don't believe any of what she's saying.

She's desperate now to convince them, convince herself, convince anyone who'll listen, that this thing with Derek is something she can control. Or at the very least, something that neither of them is truly invested in.

"For all I know," she tells them, as calmly as possible. "I'm not even the only woman he's seeing. There could be—"

George snorts in disbelief.

"Meredith, you two spend every free minute together. I see more of him at the house than I do here in the hospital. There's no way he's seeing anyone else."

She gives George a dirty look, and he hangs his head sheepishly. Izzie and Christina nod in his direction though.

"You're all wrong," Meredith finally declares. "I mean, you're so wrong that it's funny, but not the kind of funny when you laugh. The kind of funny that—"

"Oh, calm down, will you?" Christina grumbles. "No one's implying that he's letting it affect his job or anything. Though really, if you think about it, Shepherd is so good that he could probably have you bent over the table during a surgery and still put the rest of the slashers to shame."

She and Izzie laugh, while George only smiles slightly, seeming a little uncomfortable. Meredith throws a pen at Christina because she's just that frustrated. She feels like a five year old in the midst of a temper tantrum.

"It's really nothing to worry about, Mere. It's not like he doesn't try to hide it," Izzie says. "But he just can't help himself. I mean, we're talking about the irresistible Meredith Grey. Who isn't vulnerable to her considerable charms?"

She smiles wickedly.

"I know I always feel a little overcome when she's in the room," Christina jokes.

She and Izzie laugh again. They are beyond amused with themselves. George tries to fight off a smile, his lower lip trembling with the effort.

"I hate you guys. I seriously hate you guys," Meredith says. "This isn't a joke, you know."

"No," Izzie agrees. "It's not a joke… It's luh-ve."

Meredith glares at her roommate.

"I swear, I could—"

Her pager goes off then, and because the world exists solely to torture her, she knows without looking that it's Shepherd, and even worse, her friends know that it's Shepherd. It doesn't matter that it's probably something totally above board and official. They'll put their own spin on it.

"Better hurry, Meredith," Christina says. "McDreamy needs you."

Meredith hurries down the hallway without glancing back. Before she turns the corner, though, she hears Izzie's voice.

"Can you imagine the kids those two will have?" she muses. "Ridiculously good looking, blue-eyed uber-surgeons. Scar-ee."

Meredith shakes her head, and goes back to work.

x –

There's that old saying: My mother always told me that there'd be days like these.

Not mine, Meredith thinks numbly. And her mother was once as indisputable expert in precisely these kinds of bad days. Ellis Grey, however, never admitted to failure, never owned up to feeling anything less than self-assured. At least not to her daughter. Her mother radiated the kind of confidence that legends are made of.

Once upon a time anyway.

This morning, at the home, her mother was less than lucid, so there would be no words of wisdom dispensed regardless. Still, the memory of her mother's self-confidence is strong, not easily forgotten even in light of her illness. Meredith has never felt that kind of sureness about herself or her abilities, and she's starting to think that she never will. Not after a day like today.

The handsome college sophomore who died while she had her hands all over his heart is reason enough for that. Burke told her again and again that it was a complicated surgery, and chances weren't good going in, but Meredith knows that a more capable doctor would have gotten the job done. She has no doubts about that.

Just an hour and fifteen minutes after her nineteen year old patient has coded, Meredith sits in her car, motionless. She knows that she should drive home, but she can't seem to get as far as turning the key in the ignition. The rain makes a pretty jewel-like pattern on the windshield, and she watches it, almost as if she's looking for a message in the streaky glass. When she hears a tapping on the driver's side window, she knows immediately who's there, though she doesn't look and still doesn't move.

"Meredith. Open up," says Derek. "Come on."

She looks at him through the foggy window, and he's still recognizable, still exactly who he's always been. It's a relief because she'd started to worry that everything in her life was really some kind of fraud. He raps his knuckles against the glass again, and she finally flips opens the lock. Derek fills up the empty space of the open door entirely, blocking the rain and world from sight.

"I heard what happened," he says quietly. "You want to talk about it?"

She doesn't move or make a sound, just stares at her fingers and grips the steering wheel more firmly. He reaches out to touch her shoulder.

"You can't take this so hard every time it happens. It's part of the job."

She shakes her head wildly.

"It's my fault, Derek. If it had been any one else in there… Christina, Izzie, Alex… that kid would still be alive. I panicked, I froze…"

"Meredith, you're a good doctor. But you're not going to be able to save them all. Even on some of your best days."

She thinks of her mother again, and suspects that in her prime she would have disagreed with such a sentiment. 'You're only allowing for failure if you think that way,' her mother would have said. Meredith tears up all of a sudden, and her breath comes heavy and hard from her chest. She feels utterly ridiculous and self-conscious, so she lowers her head, hoping against hope that maybe Derek won't notice.

The tears aren't just over her lost patient. She's exhausted from eighty hours of work this week, and she's probably getting her period any day now, and her meeting with her mother this morning went as bad as it possibly could. Some how all of this hits her at once, and she wishes that she could find a hole somewhere to crawl into and disappear.

Derek strokes her cheek, bending at an awkward angle. He won't let her disappear.

"Come on, Mer," he whispers. "You're okay. It's okay. "

She shakes her head miserably, falling against his body. He pets her hair, the most reassuring gesture she's felt in ages.

"Move over."

Without thinking, Meredith slides over to the passenger's seat, and watches Derek get behind the wheel. On the drive home, she studies him as he drives, the way the rain and light color his face. The way he looks, it's so easy to believe that he could take care of her, never let anything hurt her again.

At the house, he puts her to bed like she's a child, searching through her drawers for her most comfortable pajamas and loosely tucking the blankets around her. He brings her cinnamon tea, and puts on the CD she's been obsessed with lately, some mournful female singer who just the other day he said made him want to perform a craniotomy on himself without any anesthesia.

She realizes then, like some lightening bolt revelation, that she doesn't just want him or even like him – she respects and admires him. He's good to his patients and he's good to her, and she thinks that she'd like to be more like him.

Derek lies beside her in bed, rubbing her back, and watches her, like she's one of his patients, fragile and barely hanging on. She knows that he thinks that something more has happened with her today than simply losing a patient and wants to ask what exactly it is, but won't push her. She should tell him about her mother, Meredith knows, but it's just too difficult to do.

He rubs her back, persuading her to sleep.

"Thank you," she whispers, from the curve of his neck. She kisses him there, tasting salt and soap.

Derek doesn't say anything. He hugs her to him, and turns off the light. She keeps pressing her wet, open mouth against his neck, the only way she can think of to show her gratitude. She's pretty sure he doesn't think it necessary.

"Sleep," he tells her, and for once she listens.

x –

One more section to come …


	3. 3

Disclaimer – Still not mine.  
A/N – This is the final part of the story. I just wanted to thank everyone who took the time to leave a review and share your thoughts. I appreciate it so much. And to all the other GA fic writers out there, keep the stories coming because there's not nearly enough of them. :) 

x –

She can't see it, but the sun is setting somewhere above them, painting the sky purple and pink. The land surrounding the trailer is so lush and green that it almost feels like another world. Derek's promised her Mexican take-out and a massage after a hellishly long week. He even took the blender out in the kitchen to make margaritas – "I remember your fondness for tequila," he told her, smirking – and bought a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream, her favorite, for dessert. It seems to her that he's pulling out all the stops, and she wonders what it is he's aiming for.

It's so different to be here with him at his place than when they're together at her house. There, it's always interrupted moments, Izzie and George arguing over the TV remote, Christina popping in for free meals and beer, mail piling up in her mother's name. It's a crowded, chaotic world. On Derek's land, in his small trailer, they could be the only two people left on earth. She's used to feeling utterly alone, like she has nowhere to turn, but when she's with him like this, there's no longer anything terrifying about it. He calms her down in a way that she can't even begin to explain.

If only she could tell him that. If only she knew for sure that he felt the same way.

She wishes that she knew something about the women in his past, something that could help her figure out if she's something special to him or just one more in a long line of nameless, faceless women he's passed time with over the years. Sometimes she believes that there is something particular to her that makes him act the way he does. Sometimes he really makes her believe that.

Meredith watches him now as he prepares their drinks. He's so casual and easy-going, but still determined, in a way that makes it seem like he's entirely in invested in what happens here tonight.

"I should probably be concerned that alcohol always seems to serve as matchmaker for us," she tells him as he salts the rims of their glasses.

Derek smiles.

"Well, you're naturally wound up pretty tight, so getting a few drinks in you sort of evens things out."

She rolls her eyes.

"Is that right?"

He nods emphatically.

"And you know, as sexy as you are when you're drunk, you're even more so when you're stone-cold sober, so there's no need to worry."

She feels her cheeks warm. He can make her feel like a schoolgirl so much of the time, and the realization that he wants her as much as he does is more than a little thrilling. There's a reason that Christina calls him McDreamy after all, and still it's Meredith he's chasing after. Talk about an ego boost.

He brings over their margaritas, and sits down beside her. The sky is an even deeper pink now, and it's quiet everywhere around them. They couldn't have planned a more perfect ending to the hellish week behind them. She looks at green land in front of them, empty but so beautiful. It's like potential personified.

"Are you going to build something here?" she asks.

Derek smiles, almost as if he can already see a structure taking shape before his eyes.

"I'm thinking about it."

Meredith nods, thinking about it herself. She puts her drink down, and stands, surveying the land once more. The possibilities seem limitless, like the land is blank page and Derek could write anything that he wants on it. For a second, she imagines herself as part of that anything, and she realizes how much she likes that feeling.

She turns back to him, and settles herself on Derek's lap. He smiles up at her, bemused.

"It could be amazing," she says. "All this land… it's so beautiful."

He laughs quietly.

"You know, it was actually kind of an impulsive buy." He runs his hand along her knee. "Deep down, I didn't think I'd ever want to stay here, and I wanted to prove myself wrong. As it turns out, I'm liking Seattle more than I thought I would."

He grins, reaching out to touch her cheek.

"But you know that."

Yes, I guess I know that, Meredith thinks. He's told her as much in a thousand different ways. She's just been too afraid to listen.

She kisses him now, willing to listen to everything that he wants to tell her. He tastes salty and tart, the most delicious combination, and she goes back for seconds. When they finally pull apart, he fixes her with one of his intense looks.

"You make me feel…" he starts to say. But he shakes his head, almost as if he can't believe what he wants to say.

The wind whips Meredith's hair around then, and he pushes it back into place.

"What?" she wants to know. "What do I make you feel?"

Derek kisses along her neck, his hands in her hair. His mood, beyond those gestures, is impossible to read.

"I don't think I've figured the word out yet," he says finally, his breath warming her skin.

She shakes her head, only a little frustrated. She thinks that she understands the gist of what he's telling her. They kiss again, oblivious to the rest of the world.

Above them, the sky has gone dark purple, heavy with clouds. Meredith doesn't even miss the sun.

x –

On Sunday, they both have the day off, so she decides to make him pancakes.

George is off at brunch with the red-headed nurse that he's seeing, and Izzie is at the hospital. They are alone in her big house, and she feels some ridiculous domestic impulse. Derek seems amused by the whole thing, and gives her a wide berth, leaning back against the counter to watch her work the spatula. He laughs every now and then, but for some reason, she doesn't feel particularly self-conscious.

At the table, it's her turn to watch him as he douses the pancakes with syrup and butter. It makes her smile because he usually insists on such a sensible, healthy breakfast. The whole scene seems rather remarkable to her – he's sitting in her kitchen, shirtless, eating pancakes that she cooked, flipping through the paper with syrup-sticky fingers, and he looks perfectly at home, like he belongs there.

And really, he does, because it's exactly where she wants him.

She's slowly beginning to accept that Izzie is right – Meredith is falling for him, and maybe, just maybe, he's falling for her too. She's not ready to take it all on faith just yet; she's still trying to come up with a safe way to ask him exactly what they're doing together.

She stares at him, determined.

"What?" asks Derek, when he catches her looking at him. He wipes his mouth. "Do I have syrup all over?"

"No." She smiles. "You're perfect."

He nods absently, turning back to the paper.

She takes a bite of her pancakes, but it tastes like sawdust. Sometimes it's difficult not to think of her mother – not what she's become necessarily, but what she's lost. Not just her ability to wield a scalpel or memories of the most basic details of her life, like her daughter's name, how many years she was married, what her favorite pizza topping was or how she took her coffee. Her mother has lost time itself -- time to fix her mistakes and then make new ones, time to learn and grow and become something more than what she'd always been. Time to waste.

Just time.

And it was all taken so quickly too. Blink and you would have missed it. If her job didn't impress this fact upon Meredith, then her mother's illness most certainly would have: nothing in this life is guaranteed.

Derek laughs at something in the paper. He seems entirely carefree.

"I've been thinking," Meredith says quietly.

He looks up, sleepy-eyed but interested.

"Yeah? About what?"

She looks straight at him, resolute.

"Where would we be right now if we hadn't met that night in the bar?"

He lays the newspaper on the table, and smiles.

"Are you suggesting that if we hadn't had sex that first night, I wouldn't be here at your kitchen table in my boxers enjoying a perfectly innocent pancake breakfast?"

She lets out a quiet huff of amusement, but remains steadfast.

"I'm serious. Haven't you ever considered how things might be different between us?"

Derek cocks his head, thinking.

"I understand your point," he says finally. "It's probably true that if we hadn't gotten together that night so I could find out how amazing sex with you is, I wouldn't have been willing to say, Screw it with professionalism and hospital rules and all that, just because you have the prettiest blue eyes I've seen in a long time. I mean, that's probably true."

Meredith nods, trying not to smile. They stare at each other for a long moment. His lips are pursed impishly, like he's getting ready to charm the pants off of her once more.

"My point, however," he tells her. "Is that these hypothetical type questions really don't matter because it did happen. We did meet that night and we did have some pretty memorable sex on your living room floor. There's no way to take it back. And personally, I'm grateful for that."

"So you wouldn't want to? If you could, I mean."

He sighs dramatically.

"Meredith, do you really have to ask?" Derek takes her hand, stroking his thumb against her palm. "I thought I'd made myself pretty clear. I didn't give up, even when you acted like you wanted me to. What does that tell you?"

She shakes her head.

"So our entire…" she hesitates over the next word, but pushes ahead. "Our entire relationship is based upon an anonymous, drunken one-night stand…"

"What a way to get things started, huh?" he teases.

Meredith frowns.

"I just…"

"But you know what?" asks Derek. "I think that even if we hadn't met in that bar, we would have eventually wound up here, like this. You know why?"

She shakes her head again.

"Fate. Or something like it anyway." He places a kiss in the center of her palm. "I like to think of us as a force of nature. Impossible to prevent and pretty damn messy. Hot, wet…"

She takes her hand back.

"All right, all right. I get the message," she says, not unkindly. "You're saying that regardless of the circumstances, sexual attraction would have eventually won out and—"

"You sell yourself way too short, Meredith. Personally and professionally. You know why I like you so much? You're beautiful, sure, but that's not your best quality. It doesn't end there. And I like knowing that everyday, I'm going to find something new to like about you. You're like an onion, always a new layer to peel back."

She is touched, despite the fact that his words may leave a little something to be desired.

"I didn't know you were such a romantic," she jokes.

Derek nods, smirking.

"Fate? Really?" she asks.

He nods again.

"And you know what our fate is on this fine day?" he asks, leaning across the table to whisper conspiratorially to her. "To make love right here on your kitchen table. How's that for romantic?"

Meredith laughs.

"You're crazy. And totally ruining a kind of sweet moment."

He stands, pushing his plate away. She doesn't resist when he lifts her from her chair and on to the table. It's when he starts to lift her tank top that she finally protests, though half-heartedly at best.

"Derek! We can't," she giggles against his neck. "George and Izzie could be home at any minute. We can't just…"

He grins, cocky and without shame.

"Give me ten minutes. Let me show you what I can do."

She laughs again, thinking of all the reasons that she shouldn't be doing this. All the reasons to doubt him and what he feels her. Somehow, now, they just don't stand up against all the reasons why she should do it, why she should trust him and just go with the flow. Because this thing between them isn't nothing. She'll probably pretend for a little while longer that she's still unsure, but the truth is the truth, no matter how you slice it.

"Ten minutes," Meredith agrees.

Beneath her bare back, the table is sticky with syrup and spilled orange juice. She feels like the luckiest woman in the world.

x –

Later, after she's confided to him about her mother and had the news of his wife's existence thrown up in her face like a grenade, Meredith thinks, This is why nothing was the way to go, this is why you pretended that something wasn't even a possibility.

She wants to throttle herself because she had honestly started to think that they might have something, when it was really nothing the entire time, just dressed up with a lot of charm and tenderness and hot sex.

Instead Meredith locks herself in her bedroom, ignoring Izzie's offers of cinnamon coffee cake and George's sweet but ridiculous promise to kick Shepherd's ass. She refuses to take his calls. One of his sweaters is on her chair, two of his shirts are in her closet, and his toothbrush is next to hers in the bathroom. His copy of Sports Illustrated is on the bedside table, and his scent is all over her sheets. There is a small yellow post-it note on her dresser with a note from him on it: Dinner at my place tonight. 10pm. Bring some of Izzie's cookies.

There was a time, when she was younger and much more vengeful, when she would have burned all his belongings, burned the sheets that smelled like him, sliced his shirts to ribbons. At the very least, she would have thrown them from her window out on to the front lawn, so everyone who passed by would know that he was a liar and a cheater and an asshole of the highest order.

Now she's just too tired to bother.

Besides, it's only fair that she should have to live with all of his things surrounding her. That way, she won't be able to forget how stupid and impulsive she was. She won't forget that she once believed in something that never existed, that she clung to nothing like it might actually mean something.

She can learn from her mistakes. It's the only way to move on.

When Izzie knocks again, this time offering beer and the promise not to even mention Derek's name, Meredith opens her door.

"You okay?" asks Izzie, all soft-spoken and sympathetic.

"I'm fine," Meredith tells her. "I'm absolutely fine."

Izzie frowns.

"You can't be fine, Meredith. You just—"

"It's nothing," she tells Izzie. "It's nothing at all."

For once, Meredith has no doubt that she's telling the truth.

x –

The end.


End file.
